Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-04-13
MARTYRS OF SCIENCE.

Famous Investigators Who Have sacri-
feed Life and Health to Their Profess
sion.
The scientific investigator, and nota-
bly, the experimenting chemist, incurs
dangers that would be likely to appall
the most valiant fighters, and he meets
them calmly and deliberately, not in
hot blood and excitement. Familiarity
with danger breeds reckl essness, if not
contempt, and the chemist will coolly
taste with the tip of his tongue any un-
known liquid that may be handed to
him. Prussic acid IS about the only
thing he will not put into his mouth,
but he can recognize that without tast-
ing it. He will make all sorts of chem
ical combinations, and try them to see
it they are explosive or otherwise dam
gerous, and sometimes he discovers in
very unpleasant way that his new
product is loaded Dulong, in 1911,
discovered chloride of nitrogen, and
when he recovered consciousness
amid the wreck of all the glass
ware in his laboratory, he made note,
with his unwounded hand, of the fact
that chloride of nitrogen is highly ex-
plosive. About a year afterward, in
trying to ascertain the exact conditions
necessary to explode the compound, he
lost an eye and two tigers Davy, in
the same year, had a similar adventure
with the new explosive. A tube con-
tanning small quantity was suddenly
shivered to atoms without any appar-
ent cause, and piece of the glass
struck Davy in the corner of the right
eye, disabling him from further imme-
diate experiments. In July, 1918,
Davy set about finding out what was
the matter with chloride of nitrogen,
and attempted an analysis by mercury.
The stuff went off again as usual, but
Davy had protected his eyes with a
thick plate of glass, and he was wound
ed only in the head and hands. Fara-
day was sn assistant to Davy
at this time. He was holding
small tube containing a few
grains of the chloride between his
thumb and finger, when sudden and
wholly unprovoked explosion occurred,
stunning him and baby tearing his
hand.
Pliny the elder lost his life by ventur-
ing near Vesuvius to investigate the in
teresting phenomena of the eruption of
August, A. d. 79. He was suffocated
by the sulphurous fumes. Lehman,
professor of chemistry at the Imperial
Museum of St. Petersburg, was killed
in 1867 by inhalation of fumes from a
strongly-heated arsenical mixture
Berthollet proposed in 1888 to substi-
tute the chloride of potassium for the
nitrate in the manufacture of gunpow-
der, and while experimenting at
Essoune, produced terrible explosion
that killed the director of the govern
ment works and a young lady. Berthol-
let and Layoisier were both present,
but escaped injury. Lavoisier was
guillotined in 1894 Pelletier the elder
made a special study of combining
phosphorus and chlorine with the
metals, and the breathing of the vapors
induced consumption, of which he died
In 1903 Barruel rubbed Illuminating @
mercury in an agate mortar and had a
portion of his hand blown off, The
next year Figuier put sixty grains of
the same stuff in a glass-stoppered bot
tie and took it into the lecture room at
Montpelier. When he removed the
stopper, the friction caused an explo-
sion that destroyed one of the chemist S
yes. Thenard was lecturing in
1925 to the chemis try class G:
the Polytechnic School in Paris. and
moistened his throat with two mouth
fuls of corrosive sublimate instead of
sweetened water. Gentleman" he
said, 81 have poisoned myself; what I
have taken is corrosive sublimate, and
the remedy is white of eggs. Bring,
me some eggs" The students raided
aN the stores and kitchens in the neigh
borhood. and the professor was sup
piled with eggs enough to save his life.
M r Tribune.